Crude oil coming from hydraulic fracturing dependent oil operations in the Bakken Shale region are more dangerous, more explosive, than crude oil from other sources. Crude oil isn’t normally seen as a high explosion risk hazmat material. The train derailment in Quebec in July that resulted in a huge explosion…
Maybe Elon Musk is stretching too far with the Hyperloop concept? The idea, a system of tubes containing low atmospheric pressure air, through which electrically driven capsules ride at supersonic speeds, was just unveiled today, and already there are naysayers. I think there’s many who hear Musk as over-confident and…
The hydraulic fracturing boom is causing water shortages and drying up towns in West Texas, and elsewhere. Water is the source of life, and clean water means clean healthy life. The fracking process, as it’s popularly known, consumes massive amounts of water. This is water that the oil well operator…
GM CEO Dan Akerson has done it again, allowed his loose lips to say big things about future generations of the Chevy Volt. GM’s CEO Dan Akerson and his loose-lips spoke again about future product plans for the Chevy Volt, predicting on Thursday a future Volt with an longer electric…
Just how afraid of Tesla is GM? I’m asking this because of a pair of events, one where Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk laid out the company’s roadmap making it clear they can and will bring a 200+ mile range electric car to market in a couple years, and another…
Tesla continued to increase Model S sales, significantly beating their estimates, while accounting rules meant the company is showing a slight loss. Tesla Motors is continuing its streak of sales growth, selling 5,150 Model S’s during Q2 2013 up from 4,900 in Q1 2013. The company announced Q2 2013 financial…
There’d been a rumor recently that Tesla Motors is interested in self-driving cars, or what’s more formally known as Autonomous Vehicles. It’s kind of the cool thing, because Google has gotten all this attention developing self-driving cars, as have other organizations. Additionally the automakers are coming out with these amazing…
Is Climate Change the be-all-end-all problem that “we” are facing? Yes, I agree with the sentiment of the picture you see here (facebook)- namely, the effects expected from Climate Change are so huge and far-reaching that there’s no “adapting” to it, really, at least not in any simple straightforward way. …
Those of us who drive electric cars (or motorcycles) every day know the recharging infrastructure is weak. The question is how do we get the process underway to beef up the charging infrastructure? AND, what organization should fund and own the infrastructure? Over on whitehouse.gov a new petition was just…
We like to honor correct use of words, so that we know what everyone is saying. If we don’t guard against losing the track of the meaning of each word, we run the risk of being unable to communicate. What would “Hybrid Truck” mean to you? A truck with a…
While Ford and Toyota disappoint us in announcing they won’t collaborate on hybrid drive trains for full-capability SUV’s and light trucks, Nissan gladdens us with news they’ve sold their 100,000th electric vehicle. I frequently come across naysayer articles pointing out that electric car sales are 0.5% of all car sales. …
Toyota and Ford are abandoning a collaboration that would have led a jointly developed hybrid drive train for SUV’s and trucks that do heavy lifting. Toyota released a statement saying Toyota and Ford have completed their feasibility study for collaboration on the development of a new hybrid system for light…
Is electricity a Fuel? Should electric vehicle charging stations be located next to gasoline stations? Recently Fastned and ABB announced a large fast charging network to be built throughout the Netherlands. It will be the largest yet nation-scale electric car fast charging network, comprising over 200 such stations which will…
Is the Peak Oil worry a bunch of fluff, and it won’t happen? Maybe it’ll be like the Y2K crisis that had a bunch of us worried in the late 1990’s, but never amounted to anything? A recent paper by researchers at Stanford U and UC Berkeley suggest Peak Oil…
The greenest way of getting around may be walking, or riding a bicycle. Taking mass transit is generally very green because a bus or train can carry more people per square mile than can individually driven cars, the vehicles are reused by multiple passengers, better fuel efficiency per passenger mile,…
